


Storms in the Night

by pylades



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 22:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5842630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pylades/pseuds/pylades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t need to have a rifle in hand to be in danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storms in the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writetheniteaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writetheniteaway/gifts).



> A prompt fill, for my darling E.
> 
> Jack/Katherine in some sort of literal battle. much angst, no death. (Katherine angsting with a touch of Pulitzer fluff. Whatever, I don't feel shame about it.)

When Katherine was a little girl, nothing scared her more than thunderstorms. Oh, she enjoyed a nice storm during the day - often ignoring the admonishments of her mother and older siblings, she’d run out the door. The roar of thunder! The rain whipping through her hair! It was gloriously wild.

Night, though. Night was a different story. Staring out the window into blackness occasionally lit bright white from bolts of lightning made her shiver. Rolling thunder that could make the delicate figurines shake in the china cabinet made Katherine shake.

Rather than tease her for her fears or insist that she face them and be strong, as one soon-to-be-removed governess tried, her father was uncharacteristically sympathetic.

As soon as the thunder noisily made its presence known, Katherine darted out of her bed and down the long, dark halls to her father’s study.

And Joe would pull her onto his lap and count the time between each clap of thunder and bright bolt of lightning. The storm is far away, Katherine, you’re safe here.

_It will be morning soon enough, Katherine._

The same doesn’t hold true for cannons, but she counts anyway, as if the burst between each shell was a mile. Five miles out. No … seven. The little village, the camp hospital, they aren’t untouched by this terrible war, but they’re safe at the moment.

She can’t sleep, so she sits at the rickety table and writes in the dim light. The Sun sent her here to write about how war is affecting women and their families. And she writes about stolen livestock and the fortitude that allows them to survive and keep living.

Katherine writes about the hospital and the nurses who can never quite clean the blood from under their fingernails. She tells their stories - the women who work day and night to focus on something other than the trenches (another cannon, six miles?) so close to their homes. The American women who traveled from New York and Chicago and every place in between because they have husbands and family fighting.

And she nervously twists her wedding band on her finger, grateful that - while her husband is here, while he’s in danger - he’s not fighting. He’s moving from trench to camp to field hospital, drawing everything he sees. The illustrations are sent home to the World and, in the Sun, accompany her words.

He doesn’t need to have a rifle in hand to be in danger. She’s heard the stories and seen the men in hospital, after all. Trenches collapsing as men tried to eat their morning meal, gas lobbed at them during a break in hostilities, sickness.

And on these nights when the flash in the sky is so bright and the rumble of artillery so loud, she feels like that young girl again. Frozen in terror, desperate for the comfort of touch. She wants Jack with her, but he’s stuck close to the front lines with another reporter. 

The storm is far away. (Jack is too far away.)

It will be morning soon enough, Katherine. (Jack will be home soon enough, Katherine.)


End file.
